


practice Alexios

by constantine



Series: Sketches for But If You Close Your Eyes [2]
Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff, SUTCLIFF Rosemary - Works
Genre: Fanart, Gen, more scars from canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 11:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5664016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantine/pseuds/constantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Character portraits done while reading Sineala's But If You Close Your Eyes.<br/>Pencil, black and white.<br/>Warning for middling shirtlessness, and more scars from canon-typical violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	practice Alexios

 

Never drawn an Alexios before. This is...probably here until I decide I want to do another profile.

Notes:

  * The...ah, statuesque nose beloved of Classical Greek art is rare among people in Greece today (I've heard a fair number of people who assume it doesn't exist, and was only a way of making drawing profiles easier*), so there are some interesting analyses of whether it was more common among people of any of the dominant populations in antiquity who were then genetically overwhelmed, or if it was over-represented as an idealized feature. And that is all I know, because it's been a long time and I don't have that book anymore, or remember enough to google it. I would seem to be where once-citable information goes to die.


  * Point was, I've given him one anyway, because it's the most objectively 'arrogant' nose there is and so I assume Sutcliff was thinking of it. I was looking at a portrait of a young woman from Ypati, taken by Nelly's (not a typo) around 1930.



http://www.webtopos.gr/archives/art/artists/n/nelly/nelly_GirlFromIpati_251x320.jpg

  * From that I've also given him flatter and light brows than I would have otherwise, since they're associated with the straight-bridged nose, along with some other facial proportions.


  * Brief search into the Mithraic forehead mark returned featuring the phrase 'scholarly myth', used in 1979, which is how the universe tells you to give up all hope of a trustworthy answer. Those who do think it existed don't know if they think it was paint, a tattoo, or a brand, or what it would be of. The attested symbols of the Raven rank are a beaker and the caduceus, neither of which I am drawing on anybody's forehead. In the end I went with a symbol of unknown meaning used in mithraea, a circle containing a diagonal cross. Better known as the X-men logo, which is why you can't see all of it.


  * On the scar: this time I've included suture scars. Based off several modern photographs of sword-slash scars, all of which were from Britain, apparently. Who knew.



*This is flagrantly untrue, I have learned. 


End file.
